- Cardio Diagnostics has positioned the science of epigenetics at the center of its diagnostic platform.
- Looking at an individual person’s epigenetics can provide invaluable insight into the impact of their lifestyle, behavior, and environment.
- Epigenetics does more than pinpoint a problem, says CEO; it also provides some level of solution.
When most people think about their risk for heart disease, they think about family history. Did a parent or grandparent have a heart attack? Is heart disease “in their genes”? It’s an understandable assumption, and genetics does play a role in cardiovascular risk. But a growing body of research suggests that DNA sequence alone tells only part of the story, and increasingly, scientists believe it may be the smaller part. The rest of the story is largely written in epigenetics, a field of biology that examines how genes are switched on or off, turned up or down, without any change to the underlying DNA code itself. Cardio Diagnostics Holdings (NASDAQ: CDIO), a medical technology company built around epigenetics-based cardiovascular testing, has positioned this science at the center of its diagnostic platform.
Understanding the basic concept of epigenetics is key. Think of DNA as a massive instruction manual containing every gene a person could ever use. That manual does not change much over a lifetime. What does change is which pages get read, how often and how loudly. Epigenetics is essentially the bookmark and highlighter system layered on top of that manual, determined by a combination of inherited tendencies, age, diet, exercise, sleep, stress, smoking and other lifestyle factors, and environmental exposures.
“In the case of heart disease, the reason why epigenetics becomes really powerful is, if we took a step back and we had to dissect heart disease, about 20% of it is genetic,” explains Cardio Diagnostics cofounder and CEO Dr. Meesha Dogan. “So, when we talk about family history, a lot of times we’re talking about genetics. But if you pause, a lot of people would realize the way you eat, the way you grew up, your certain environment and lifestyle, that’s also family history.
Genetics alone is not your family history.
“The reason I emphasize lifestyle and environment is because that’s what epigenetics captures,” Dogan continues. “It captures what we’re doing in our day-to-day lives, whether it’s a certain behavior, what we’re eating, what’s happening around us [and] how is that affecting this specific DNA biomarker that is dynamic in nature. And that’s critical for heart disease because 80% of heart disease is nongenetic and largely comes from our lifestyle and environment.”
As a result, Dogan notes, looking at an individual person’s epigenetics can provide invaluable insight into the impact of their behavior and environment. “The other aspect that really excites me about epigenetics in the context of heart disease is that . . . as much as its pointing out a problem, there are insights into where the problem is coming from. And that is powerful because we’re not just pinpointing a problem, but inherently built into that information is some level of solution,” she states.
This is part of why epigenetics is a foundational piece of Cardio Diagnostics’ approach. The company has built its commercial testing portfolio around the concept that genetics is inherited and is not modifiable while epigenetics reflects how an individual’s lifestyle and environment shape the expression of their genes.
The company’s Epi+Gen CHD test analyzes a combination of epigenetic and genetic biomarkers to assess a patient’s three-year risk of a coronary heart disease event, including a heart attack. Research indicates that DNA methylation patterns can reflect environmental exposures and lifestyle influences while also serving as early indicators of disease risk. Because epigenetic markers can change over time, they offer a more dynamic view of cardiovascular health than genetics alone. The company’s PrecisionCHD test similarly combines epigenetic and genetic information, supported by artificial intelligence, to help detect signal associated with coronary heart disease.
For patients and healthcare providers alike, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Genetics is the starting point, not the whole picture. Choices made every day, from what is eaten and how often someone moves to whether they smoke or how they manage stress, leave a measurable trace on the genome itself. Cardio Diagnostics’ approach is rooted in the idea that reading that trace, alongside genetic information, offers a more current and more complete view of cardiovascular risk than either piece of information could provide on its own.
For more information, visit www.CDIO.ai.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CDIO are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CDIO
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